FOX ON STAGE

To an adult mourning Marshall's passing, there's a bittersweet irony to these tales of the unquenchable Fox, whose self-confidence lands him in one pickle after another; each cloud that eclipses Fox here has a silver lining. To his friends, Fox's conceited video ("Me, flossing my teeth") is "dumb," but Grannie Fox and little sister Louise "just love it"; when, capping a series of disasters, the curtain falls not only on the play he and his friends are putting on but all over the actors too, it's praised as the "Funniest thing I ever saw"—which is likely to be the intended audience's response to Fox's latest posturings and pratfalls. Marshall's deft way with very simple, very natural, miraculously funny phrases is perfectly matched by the insidiously caricatured animals performing in his proscenium- arch- and TV-screen-shaped frames. There are plenty of delectable details—a crocodile-librarian poised on a tall library ladder; a theatrical "mummy," a pig garbed in toilet paper. And, again, the comically expressive faces are priceless. One more to treasure. (Easy reader. 4-8)